Sunday, May 28, 2006

Color My World

Firstly, I must reiterate: I write these posts with American spelling, because I know most of my readers are American. I KNOW how to use Canadian spelling, so I do know that I can color in the States and I can colour in Canada. And if you're American, you'd better honor my choices, and if you're Canadian, honouring me is the only choice.Good, that aside, I can continue...My family and I went on the annual Toronto Walk for Israel today -- it was a gorgeous day, a beautiful turnout, and a fun time was had by all.

Fun is the result of several events of the day, among them promotional freebies that are given out along the route or at the final checkpoint. My kids were busy doing something at the after-walk festival, so I picked up a few of the goodies for them. One of them was three packs of crayons, one per child. Afterward, I thought to myself, "I stood in line for 25 minutes for THIS??!! I could sell THEM crayons...we have so many at home."

But later this evening, I looked at the box of crayons, and saw something rather interesting (at least to me!) about the box. No, not that the artwork -- 3 panda bears eating bamboo leaves -- sucks (It does! What's the correlation with panda bears and crayons except that they both might originate in China?!). But under the name of the company, and the word CRAYONS, it says MADE FROM SOYBEANS!

Hmm...so is this company saying, These crayons are so healthy, you could eat them. Should I feed my kids something like soup, salad and pita pockets for a Sunday lunch, and say, "Here. Have a couple of these colorful crayons to go with that. They're healthy too!"

Many crayons say "environmentally safe, and non-toxic" as this box does, but it also explains these crayons are "pure" as well as "smoother, brighter, no waxy flaking because Fun Pro contains no petroleum wax, only pure soybean oil!" (And what's with the exclamation marks? Will these sell better because of a little punctuation?)

I guess there are some people who are much more "natural thinkers" than I might profess to be; perhaps they look for crayons like these; perhaps they only use bean-based crayons...

Thanks, Randi, for the compliment. If I'm too young to remember the band, then I won't spend "Saturday in the Park" "Wishing You Were Here" but I'll tell you that I'm "Feelin' Stronger Every Day".I guess you might know from "Old Days" and if not, "Baby, What a Big Surprise." (need I say more?) BTW, "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It is?"